That's what the Stihl rep for area was telling us last week in the local shop. He said they are going to move away from the 170/181 type homeowner saws and prolly start with a saw around the 211/231 size at a 249 dollar price point, he said it may take a year, but that is the plan. He was concerned about a loss of sales. May not be true in your market, but the guy had just been to Va. Beach. He said marketing though the name recognition alone would get customers to step up to the next logical price point. Really it's not a bad idea. It's the same way Costco markets in retail here.
The low end saws the possibility of tarnishing the image and also could have a high cost of warranty claims, making them marginal in profitability, also giving that customer up couldn't hurt product liability either with some of the home owner mentality. I could see them doing here in the US, call it an intelligent loss of sales, give customer to Husky/Poulan. Let them have the margainlly profitable business and the returns and warranty claims. Let the first time guy have a bad expierence with a box store purchase get the bad taste in his mouth and then when he come in the dealership have ole Tommy standing there selling him up in price and perceived quality. Makes marketing sense, which is the one thing Husky isn't worth a damn at.